Hawaii election officials urge last-minute votes as primary turnout lags

News admin August 7, 2026 0 Comments

Hawaii election officials urge last-minute votes as primary turnout lags

KAPOLEI (HawaiiNewsNow) – Early voter turnout for the primary election is lagging behind previous years, with elections officials urging voters to cast their ballots ahead of Saturday’s deadline.

As of Wednesday, approximately 196,000 ballots have been cast statewide, representing about 23% of the state’s 840,000-plus registered voters.

That turnout is behind the pace of the last primary election, which saw about 28% turnout at the same point, officials said.

Honolulu elections administrator Rex Quidilla said although the current trend is “not awesome,” elections officials are hoping for a last-minute push from voters before Saturday.

LEARN MORE: 2026 Hawaii primary election voter guide and results

In-person voting options and locations

At this point, officials warn that it is too late to return ballots by mail. Voters should instead use one of the drop boxes located across the island, which will remain open until 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Quidilla recommends avoiding the rush on the final day by visiting service centers on Thursday or Friday.

Voter service centers are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Wahiawā District Park and Kāneʻohe District Park, though these satellite locations will not be open on Election Day.

On Saturday, in-person voting will be consolidated at Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale, which will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Quidilla explained the change is necessary to ensure operations run smoothly on Election Day.

“Staff is valuable. Trained staff is very important to making sure service centers run well. So what we do is we take those staffs and we deploy them out to the big ones,” he said.

Mail-in ballot security

Addressing concerns about the security of the mail-in voting system, Quidilla emphasized that the process has multiple layers of security and is continuously observed.

“What most people don’t know is we actually have two different operations running our voting system, which is ourselves on the mail side and the state on the other. So that’s a check and balance that is part of our system,” he said.